Yard Slob Has Cleaned Up His Act

Update: Follow-up on local news

NEWPORT NEWS — Dan Oprisko wsed to think that people have an inalienable right to do whatever the heck they feel like on their own property without being pestered by the city codes inspectors.

He'd work on as many cars as he pleased.

He'd store stuff in the yard, if he wanted.

He'd let the weeds grow.

If his buddies didn't always have the best aim when flipping their beer cans toward the trash can, well, what's the harm in that?

When the city kept citing him for being a slob, Oprisko vowed to fight it out in court. People got rights, you know.

When the newspaper ran a story about him, Oprisko asked that his telephone number be included so that he could organize everyone in Newport News who wants the right to be a little disorganized now and then.

About a 100 people called him, he says. Most told him to fight the good fight; don't let those guys at City Hall push you around. Some, of course, told him he was a slob.

A new codes inspector comes around now - one he gets along with better than the last one.

"The guy came around and told me there's an open file on me," Oprisko says.

Oprisko painted his house and fixed the screens. He watches the beer cans.

He's a changed man.

"Possibly," he says. "But it probably has more to do with a new girlfriend than the law."

THEN AND NOW

Compiled by Amanda Haskins

25 YEARS AGO. The director of the Catholic Home Bureau (CHB) announced the organization's need for five more boarding homes for babies. The boarding home system was one of a series of steps that the CHB took to complete its tasks as a licensed adoption agency. Caregivers at the homes kept the newborn babies from the time they left the hospital until they were placed in an adoptive home.

The agency counseled the natural parents and the adoptive parents, investigated the adoption applications and cared for the newborns.

The Catholic Home Bureau, now called Catholic Charities of Hampton Roads, Inc. (CCHR) still operates as an adoptive agency. CCHR offers confidential services including counseling, temporary housing for women 18 and older, free pregnancy screening and adoption planning.

The agency evaluates adoptive parents based on health, financial stability, age and other family situations.

One month earlier, Jones and his business partner, Odell Markham, celebrated the successful test of a safety parachute designed to keep small airplanes from crashing. After 20 years developing the invention and two failed tests, they succeeded: Their 58-foot Superchute slipped out of a canister slung under the belly of the plane, then mushroomed over the plane and carried it to the ground. The final test gave the developers the data they needed to seek federal approval for the device.

While the Superchute waited for Federal Aviation Administration certification, a company called Ballistic Recovery Systems Inc. in St. Paul, Minn. was producing chutes for small planes and ultralights with federal approval.

The only small plane in the United States that comes with a standard chute is the Cirrus SR20. The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) is installed behind the baggage compartment of the plane. To release the chute, the pilot pulls a lever that launches a rocket that then deploys a parachute over the plane.

Cirrus has sold over 600 SR20 planes equipped with CAPS.

5 YEARS AGO. A Richmond conservator and his crew began removing sheets of painted plasterboard from the walls and ceilings of the Newport News home of folk artist Anderson Johnson.

The painter, whose work has been exhibited at the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, D.C. and The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, sold his house to the city in 1994.

The city planned to demolish the house in order to build a recreation center on the site.

The city council devoted $30,000 of a federal community development block grant to conserve the paintings mounted on the walls. Conservators stabilized the paintings with plywood backings and moved them to a storage facility where more conservation work was completed.

In 1998, the city council agreed to renovate the old Walter Reed Elementary School in the East End and re-open the building as the Downing-Gross Cultural Art Center. The first phase of renovation, including knocking down interior walls and replacing the roof began this spring. When the five-year project is completed, the center will contain a permanent display of Anderson Johnson's folk art.

Then and Now compiled by Amanda Haskins. Amanda Haskins can be reached at 247-4884 or by e-mail at ahaskins@dailypress.com Jeff Long can be reached at 247-4760 or by e-mail at jlong@dailypress.com